Please Bang My Wife – Translator’s Corner

Hello, everyone! Pastel Chum again, here with some final thoughts on everybody’s new favorite eroge title, Please Bang My Wife! And by that, I mean I’m literally going to talk about the title. Can’t forget that! But first, I’ve got to bore you to tears with what it was like working on the game, along with some of the specific thoughts that stuck out in my mind when it was all said and done.

This was my first project with MangaGamer, and more prominently, my first foray into NTR as a major concept. Honestly, before I started working on this game, I wouldn’t have known how to describe it other than “that excuse for why your favorite girl isn’t a virgin.” My interests are definitely slanted towards comedy and moe, so I was a little apprehensive going into a project that was so unfamiliar and nebulous. Plus, as my first official project, there was a quite a bit of uncertainty and learning about the translation process—I’d never worked with an editor before, for one. So, the whole thing was uncharted territory for me… in retrospect, I think that actually turned out to be the best-case scenario, even if it was giving me cold sweats at the time.

At first blush, there were a couple things I really appreciated about the game. Yasushi’s personality is fairly close to my own, so it was easy for me to get inside his head. (Personally, I think it’s rather amusing that the game’s staff needed a career for a long-suffering shell of a man, and settled on their own.) Mariko’s route is set up to show you the “truth,” a conceit I definitely wasn’t expecting out a game of this scale and size. And, I’ve mentioned it before, but a simple love triangle setup goes a long way towards making the plot realistic and totally plausible.

One of the things that really caught me by surprise was that having to work on parts of the story made me actually angry. Now, I’ve been on the internet for a very long time, and I’ve certainly seen my share of gnarly porn, but I’m not talking about that here. What I mean is, it was emotionally taxing to watch Mariko sneak around and deceive her husband, in a way I didn’t anticipate at all. It’s not a “gross, that doesn’t go in there!” reaction, but “you’re doing the wrong thing, and you can stop this, but you aren’t!”

Maybe it was worse for me than for a reader, since I actually had to write every sentence—it’s not like I could just click through the text to make it go away faster. I know it probably sounds stupid, but it made me feel complicit, in a way. I just wanted to help!

By the time I finished the project, I came away with a new perspective on NTR… which probably isn’t surprising, considering I didn’t really have one to begin with. As someone who’s never had especially high self-esteem, it kinda struck a chord with me to see that so blatantly fetishized. It’s not something that’s usually so visible. Like… it’s really easy to take a glance at the game, or even just the title, and instantly dismiss it with any number of unsavory catch-alls. Given NTR’s unfortunate reputation, I expected some level of that from day one. But, once I spent some time with it, I think I managed to figure out what it really is.

NTR is an outlet for negativity. It’s for masochists. It’s for people who get off on being kicked around by the world. It’s for people who are afraid of losing things.

When Yasushi, pulling an all-nighter at work, wonders if his wife got home from that drinking party safely, I know that feeling. When he can’t quite figure out why Mariko is giving him the cold shoulder at night, I understand. When he realizes he’s being lied to by the person he loves most, I can relate. I have the same fears—I think a lot of people do, actually. And, as someone prone to anxiety attacks, I can absolutely see myself in Yasushi’s shoes when his boss asks him why his work is inexplicably suffering. (Let me attest: it sucks.) Jealousy, fear, despair… imagine a porn game that uses those emotions as fuel, and that’s the basis of NTR.

Not to get too real all of a sudden, but it really seems like fear and distrust are in vogue these days. It’s hard to talk about any sort of sensitive issue under a public eye without opening yourself up to all sorts of junk. The world’s kind of a hateful place, isn’t it? So, to me, it’s extremely interesting to see something celebrate those vulnerabilities, and channel them towards less destructive ends, like sexual gratification. It feels like a school of thought we don’t see a lot in the western world, so it really got me thinking… where has NTR been, this whole time? How come it didn’t catch on years ago? Is there a reason that things like Fifty Shades are the closest we get to mainstream emotional deviance?

Now, I’m not going to argue that this porn game about sex-ventures and guilt trips is high art, but there’s certainly something to be said about a piece of literature that makes you think. For me at least, it really helped codify those emotions as “a thing,” even if I don’t necessarily think it’s “my thing.” I know it’s sounds preposterous to pull a life lesson out of a game called Please Bang My Wife, but working on it actually did teach me a couple things. Maybe it’s perfectly normal to dislike yourself. Maybe it’s okay to… ask somebody to bang your wife? Assuming everyone involved is cool with that?
So, as for the general takeaway, I’d say NTR is porn for your emotions. If that idea tickles your fancy, maybe give it a chance! I’d be downright chuffed to hear what others think after playing this game. And hey, even if you’re not in the market for some hard-hitting marital woes… Mariko’s pretty cute, too! (Just make sure you put her dang glasses on.)

Anyway, it’s finally time to pivot towards a topic I enjoy a little more earnestly: anecdotes and terrible jokes! It seems quite a few of you enjoy the game’s title… maybe even numbering in the double-digits! Once the name had been finalized internally, it’s no exaggeration to say that I couldn’t wait until it was publicly announced. Because I could not wait. To me, it was the pinnacle of comedy to know that, in just a short time, people would be forced to actually say and/or type that specific combination of words. It warms the… things… of my heart to see it get such a positive reaction. So, I thought I’d share the story of how Please Bang My Wife came to be.

When two NTR characters love each other very much, a stork comes along, and pulls one of them aside… no no no, wait, come back! I’ll tell the story, I promise!

Like so many eroge before it, the original Japanese title was especially long-winded. Basically, the title very helpfully clues you in to the fact that Mariko, who is your beloved wife, is having relations with somebody else in the next room. Then, the subtitle wanted to make sure you also knew that he was teaching her a bunch of stuff in your absence. Very informative! But also very hard to cram into a handful of English words. We weren’t lucky enough to get one of those dainty, easy-to-translate titles, like Tasty Shafts or The House in Fata Morgana, so we needed to improvise.

Believe it or not, we didn’t start discussing the name until the game was fully translated and edited. So, in service of that one final task, my editor Mary and I bounced some ideas around for an hour. We settled on My Wife’s Secret Lover, brought it to the rest of the team, and that was going to be it… until I wondered if it could be just little bit punchier. One spur-of-the-moment thought (and one minor revision) later, Please Bang My Wife was born. Personally, I cannot stress enough how proud I am of that stupid, amazing name. It’s the best. It’s the actual best.

(MangaGamer had a chance to stop me. They didn’t. It’s out of my hands now.)

Well, that about does it for me. I hope you enjoyed reading my dumb words! I’m fresh out of ’em, at this point. Well, maaaybe I’ve got a couple more, but they’ll have to come in the form of a haiku…

3 Comments

It feels like a school of thought we don’t see a lot in the western world, so it really got me thinking… where has NTR been, this whole time? How come it didn’t catch on years ago?

There are “cuckold porn” in Western World.

it popular enough that “cuck” has been used as insult and meme. it especially popular among right-wing and/or white supremacist. The premise is usually older white male, having his wife have sex with black/brown younger men.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckservative.

nice haiku brah
I like reading translation posts. I find the stuff fascinating.

Plus now I finally see that NTR is a thing. I saw that term thrown around about Ozmafia, but it went over my head lol. Now I’m thinking I dig it. There was a series called Dousei Kareshi, that had a love triangle in one or more of the entries (plus Shimono Hiro as cv. in one), that caught my eye. I mean how cool would it be to play out a situation like that without the real life repercussions? xD

haha… emotional porn. i might play this. Years ago I used to buy yaoi manga but had to look for the ones that were all about angst, not the physical stuff. (before that it was shoujo but I had enough of the typical “fairy princess love story” feel. well, I got tired of yaoi manga too.)

+_+ now its all about visual novels for me, of pretty much all genres. It’s cool that they finally caught on a lot more outside Japan, so I get my emotional porn.